Briefing: Lessons from past food crises
A burgeoning population. Soaring energy costs. Rising demand for meat. A catastrophic harvest. A sudden run on the grain market – and an 80 percent surge in food prices in three years. A brief run-down of the current world food crisis? Yes, but it also applies to the early 1970s – the last time the collective cupboard was bare. Despite similarities, today's food price shock also has some striking features which sets it apart from past crises.
As world leaders gather in Rome Tuesday for a three-day United Nations conference on what steps to take to address the international food crisis, they might study what lessons can be learned from the recent pages of history. How unusual is this food crisis? The current situation is hardly unprecedented. The 1972 alarm, triggered by a hungry Soviet Union seeking to compensate for failed grain harvests, had brutal knock-on effects in East Africa and the Asian subcontinent. Farm prices didn't start falling until 1975, once Washington and Moscow reached an agreement on grain trade. The deal sought to regulate Soviet grain purchases and calm markets by removing any sudden spikes in demand that would drain stockpiles. The episode left a clear lesson: transparency and regular trading between big market players can prevent price spikes... www.csmonitor.com
